Facebook continues fight for ‘free internet’ in India, hands $1.2M to local startups

Facebook tried to bring “free” internet to India several months ago and was shot down for its violation of net neutrality. Internet.org was seen as the company’s way of endorsing specific sites for those who were signed up for the scheme. Essentially, critics explained, Internet.org would turn the internet into a series of subscription-based channels and the grand, utopian vision that the 21st century held for the possibilities of the world wide web would be gone.

Life without net neutrality is colorless.

In response, Facebook last month renamed Internet.org to “Free Basics” and opened up the API to allow other developers to create apps that would work with its scheme.

The social network company also launched the Innovation Challenge, an initiative to encourage the development of apps that would work with Internet.org. The challenge was split up into four categories of people that Facebook decided could use help from online tools: farmers, women, students, and migrants.

Facebook today presented one USD$250,000 Innovation Challenge award and two US$25,000 Impact awards across each of the four categories. The company handed out a total of US$1.2 million. Here’s the list of 12 winners:

Farmers category

The Innovation Challenge Award for farming was presented to Ekutir, which supplies farmers with information on how to enhance their farming practices. It includes a tool that analyzes soil and a program that provides information on crops, soil type, seed selection, and best practices for seed preparation.

Meanwhile, Farmily, a social marketplace for farmers, and Farmalytics, which uses things like soil sensors to provide analytics about farms, both won Impact Awards.

Women’s category

The Innovation Challenge Award for women was won by MySangham, a crowdsourcing platform for skill development. It allows job-seeking women to learn new skills from online courses and connect with interested employers.

The two Impact Awards were won by Embrace Angel and Rang de Habba. Embrace Angel is an app that helps improve newborn care by providing access to online hubs of pediatricians across India and selling baby products. Rang de Habba is an online store for artisanal craftswomen to sell their goods.

Students category

BodhaGuru provides children from kindergarten to the 8th grade with self-learning products, learning apps, and videos. Its focus is on developing creative thinking through storytelling. It nabbed the Innovation Challenge Award in this category.

The Impact Awards went to Fundementor and LetsIntern. The first uses gamification to teach analytical, verbal, reasoning, and critical thinking skills to young children in grades three through nine; the other is a portal that connects students from smaller cities with internship opportunities.

Migrants category

Helper4U won the Innovation Challenge award in the migrants category. It is a job portal for semi-skilled migrants and focuses on removing the middlemen from employment interactions.

For the Impact Awards, Mygram and mHS City Lab emerged as winners.

Mygram is an SMS-based email service that informs people through text when they receive an email and creates a unique mailing address at @mygram.in. The startup focuses on helping migrants establish their digital identity.